Preach it, Doc
Matthew Ingram, a blogger and technology writer for the Globe and Mail, spotted a great post by Doc Searls that offers some solid advice to newspapers. I love one point in particular:
7. Stop calling everything “content”.
It’s a bullshit word that the dot-commers started using back in the
’90s as a wrapper for everything that could be digitized and put
online. It’s handy, but it masks and insults the true natures* of
writing, journalism, photography, and the rest of what we still,
blessedly (if adjectivally) call “editorial”. Your job is journalism,
not container cargo.
Searls offers some other great advice about utilizing citizen journalists, forging strong ties with bloggers, and making better use of archives. I disagree with him on the topic of paid content (and Matthew looks at the issue of pay walls here), but the rest is interesting stuff.
And, yeah, I know this blog has been silent for a few months. I got caught up finishing my book, which will be released in November. Look for more content posts here soon.
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Welcome
Hey there. Thanks for stopping by. I'm a freelance journalist and author in Montreal, Canada. I serve as an associate editor for PBS MediaShift, a website that reports on trends in new media and journalism. I edit RegretTheError.com and wrote a book of the same name. I'm also the co-author, with Michael Calce, of Mafiaboy: How I Cracked The Internet and Why It's Still Broken. Both books are listed to the right.
I write weekly columns for Hour and Columbia Journalism Review online, and am a former columnist and blogger for The Globe And Mail. Read my bio by clicking on the "About Me" link above, or check out the "Writing Samples" page to read some of my work. If you're interested in speaking with me about an assignment or project, email me at the address listed below.
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